Santorini
 

We are cruising on October 19 with celebrity cruises, and going to the greek islands
and Turkey.
We only have a day in Santorini, and would like some advise on what to do? and
what is the best way in such a short time.
Thank you for your help.,

a ship excursion is probably the most efficient and easiest. It is not a large island. Taking the cable car to the top of the cliff and then a public bus to Oia (a lovely small town) is my favorite thing to do. Hiring a cab to do an island tour is possible, but do have an idea of what it is you want to see on Santorini.

have you taken a look at the tours that your cruise line offers? we went on a med cruise with princess and they had a tour that took us to a winery I believe it was called Santo Wines, the view of the caldera from the terrace was amazing! the wine was good to :) we also went to a lookout point with a view of the whole island. Santorini is really beautiful, enjoy tour trip! and don't forget a camera :)

Last year we took the cable car to the top, walked about Fira casually, did a little shopping, visited the archeological museum and the Cathedral, had lunch at a restaurant overlooking the caldera and had a wonderful time. If you haven't visited Santorini before, just seeing the main town on your own is great. And inexpensive. Cruise line tours and inexpensive are ideas that are incompatable. Try to factor in adequate and you have real cognitve difficulties.

Thank you for your replies and orientation.
We are going to take the cable car, and then visit Oia, and
maybe have a nice lunch in town, and enjoy!! We do not have
a lot of time, so we are going to try to see the beautiful views and savour the ambiance of the island.

We took the cable car up the hill and got a taxi right away to take us to Oia. We loved that little town. We had a delightful lunch at one of the outdoor cafe's. There is a little store at the area the cabs and buses drop you off. We had them call a cab for us when we were ready to go back to the ship. What a beautiful spot. I don't know what time your ship sails but we were fortunate enough to stay until evening. At that time it is great to be in town when they are bringing the mules back up - great photo op as they walk through town.

Certainly don't take a ship excursion unless you have to. Oia is a nice destination for the day, though I find it much more touristy and much less charming than a lot of people on this site.

If it's not too hot, I'd suggest taking the bus or taxi back to Imeroviglia and then walking down into Fira. The walk takes about 20 minutes at a slow, steady pace, and it's all downhill, but you will be missing some of the most amazing views in the Greek Islands if you don't do the walk along the edge of the caldera.

Santorini is a tender port, unless you join a shore excursion you will arrive at the base of the cable car station by tender. From here you have a few options to get to Fira:-
1) take a donkey up the trail to Fira, or
2) walk up to Fira on the same trail the donkey use, or
3) take a cable car to Fira.
IMO, the later is the only sensible option. Lines for the cable car and the donkey ride can be very long, especially if there are a few ships in port. Check the schedules of other ships to see if they arrive in port earlier/later than the ship you're sailing on. I had done this and found out that there were two ships arriving in port an hour earlier than the ship I was on, so I booked a shore excursion. This way I could avoid the lines for the cable car, the shore excursion was okay, I would have prefered to explore the island independently. When I returned to the ship I heard that the wait for the cable car or a donkey ride to Fira was more than one hour, I'm glad I had booked the shore excursion.

I recommend a visit to Oia.

A piece of advice based on personal experience: if you go on your own, make sure you give yourself enough time to get back to the ship. When we were there in August 2007, the return cable car line was VERY long (40-45 minutes). As you can imagine, the queue was not happy about the line jumpers (most of which claimed to be late for their ship).

Thank you all for the advises, I have not decided what to
do., because of the long line cable cars inconveniehce., and
we prefer doing the independent tourism.
I will find out about the other ships schedule.
Thanks again

Another thing you can do and avoid the mobs that head for Oia first thing, is take the bus to Aktori. It may still be closed (the site that is), but the bus trip is great and there are a winery’s along the way you can stop at, and you get to see the backside so to speak of the island. Seldom crowded. If Aktori is open then its well worth you time. You can then take the bus to Oia a little later in the day when most have returned to the shopping around the cable cars. Worse comes to worse you can walk down the donkey path it will take about 15-20min if you take your time.

The donkeys on Santorini have been much publicised here in the UK. The people who run them don't look after them properly and they are made to work long, hot hours carrying very large tourists up and down the port path(very steep).

Please don't support these people in abusing their animals and plan for the cable car by giving yourself lots of time to get up and down. If you are fit, the walk down is 15 to 20 minutes.

I'd never ride on one of the donkeys, even if you paid me. Make sure you have enough time to get up/down by cable car.